Below is the text of Pope Francis’ homily on Ash Wednesday, delivered at St. Peter’s Basilica on February 17.
We now begin our Lenten journey, which begins with the words of the prophet Joel. They indicate the path we must follow. We hear an invitation that comes from the heart of God, who with open arms and longing eyes begs us: “Come back to me with all your heart” (Joel 2:12). Come back to me. Lent is a journey back to God. How many times, in our activity or indifference, have we said to him: “Lord, I will come to you later, wait a minute … I cannot go today, but tomorrow I will begin to pray and do something for others”. Now, however, God is speaking to our hearts In this life, we will always have things to do and excuses to offer, but now, brothers and sisters, now is the time to return to God.
Come back to me, he says, with all your heart. Lent is a journey that involves our whole life, our whole being. It is time to reconsider the path we have taken, to find the path that takes us home and to rediscover our deep relationship with God, on whom everything depends. Lent is not just about the small sacrifices we make, but about discerning where our hearts are headed. This is the heart of Lent: asking where our hearts are headed. Let us ask: where does the navigation system of my life take me – to God or to myself? Do I live to please the Lord or to be noticed, praised, placed at the top of the line …? Do I have a “wavering” heart that takes a step forward and then a step back? Do I love the Lord a little and the world a little, or is my heart firm in God? Am I content with my hypocrisies or do I work to free my heart from the duplicity and falsehood that bind it?
Lent’s journey is an exodus, an exodus from slavery to freedom. These forty days correspond to the forty years that God’s people traveled through the desert to return to their homeland. How difficult it was to leave Egypt! It was more difficult for God’s people to leave Egypt from the heart, which Egypt carried within them, than to leave the land of Egypt. It is difficult to leave Egypt behind. During his journey, there was an ever-present temptation to crave leeks, to go back, to cling to memories of the past or this or that idol. So it is with us: our journey back to God is blocked by our sick attachments, held back by the seductive traps of our sins, by the false security of money and appearances, by the paralysis of our disaffected ones. To embark on this journey, we have to unmask these illusions.
Lent is a journey that involves our whole life, our whole being.
But we can ask ourselves: how do we continue on our journey back to God? We can be guided by return journeys described in the word of God.
We can think of the prodigal son and realize that it is time for us, too, to return to the father. Like that son, we too forget the familiar smell of our home, waste a precious inheritance on insignificant things and end up with empty hands and an unhappy heart. We fall, like children who fall constantly, babies who try to walk, but keep falling and need, time after time, to be picked up by the father. That is father’s forgiveness that always put us on our feet. God’s forgiveness – confession – is the first step on our return journey. In mentioning the Confession, I ask confessors to be like parents, offering not a stick, but a hug.
So we need return to Jesus, like the leper who, once healed, returned to thank him. Although ten were healed, he was the only one saved, because he returned to Jesus (cf. Lk 17: 12-19). We all have spiritual illnesses that we cannot cure alone. We all have deep-seated vices that we cannot eradicate alone. We all have paralyzing fears that we cannot overcome alone. We need to imitate that leper, who returned to Jesus and threw himself at his feet. We need Jesus Healing, we need to present our wounds to him and say: “Jesus, I am in your presence, with my sin, with my pains. You are the doctor. You can set me free. Heal my heart ”.
Jesus says this clearly in the Gospel: What makes us righteous is not the justice we show others, but our sincere relationship with the father.
Once again, the word of God asks us to return to the Father, to return to Jesus. It also calls us to return to the Holy Spirit. The ashes in our heads remind us that we are dust and we will return to dust. Yet, over this dust of ours, God breathed his Spirit of life. Therefore, we must no longer live our lives chasing dust, chasing things that are here today and are gone tomorrow. Let us return to the Spirit, the Giver of Life; let us return to the Fire that raises our ashes, to the Fire that teaches us to love. We will always be dust, but as a liturgical hymn says, “dust of love”. Let’s pray again to the Holy Spirit and rediscover the fire of praise, which consumes the ashes of lamentation and resignation.
Brothers and sisters, our journey back to God is only possible because he first traveled to us. Otherwise, it would be impossible. Before we even went to him, he came to us. He preceded us; he came down to find us. For us, he lowered himself more than we can imagine: he became sin, he became death. Thus, Saint Paul tells us: “For us, God made him sin” (2 Color 5:21). Not to abandon us, but to accompany us on our way, he embraced our sin and our death. He touched our sin; he touched our death. Our journey, then, is to let you take us by the hand. The Father who sends us home is the same one who left home to come and look for us; the Lord who heals us is the same who let himself suffer on the cross; the Spirit that enables us to change our lives is the same that breathes softly, but with strength in our dust.
Lent is a humble descent both inland and for others. It is about realizing that salvation is not an ascension to glory, but a descent in love.
This, then, is the apostle’s plea: “be reconciled to God” (v. 20). Be reconciled: the journey is not based on our own strength. No one can be reconciled to God on their own. Conversion of heart, with the works and practices that express it, is only possible if it starts from the primacy of God’s work. What allows us to return to him is not our own skill or merit, but his free gift. Grace saves us; salvation is pure grace, pure gratuity. Jesus says this clearly in the Gospel: What makes us righteous is not the justice we show others, but our sincere relationship with the father. The beginning of the return to God is the recognition of our need for him and his mercy, our need for his grace. This is the right path, the path of humility. Do I feel the need or do I feel self-sufficient?
Today we bow our heads to receive the ashes. At the end of Lent, we will bow down even more to wash the feet of our brothers and sisters. Lent is a humble descent both inland and for others. It is about realizing that salvation is not an ascension to glory, but a descent in love. It is becoming small. Lest we stray on our journey, let us stand before the cross of Jesus: the silent throne of God. Let us contemplate daily his wounds, the wounds he brought to heaven and which he daily shows the Father in his intercessory prayer. Let us contemplate these wounds daily. In them, we recognize our emptiness, our deficiencies, the wounds of our sin and all the hurts we experience. Still, we see clearly that God does not point a finger at anyone, but opens his arms to embrace us. His wounds were inflicted because of us, and by these wounds we have been healed (cf. 1 pet 2:25; IT IS 53: 5). Kissing these wounds, we will realize that there, in the most painful wounds in life, God awaits us with his infinite mercy. Because there, where we are most vulnerable, where we are most ashamed, he came to meet us. And coming to meet us, he now invites us to return to him, to rediscover the joy of being loved.